


Love is Less Kind Than the Grey Twilight

by SourPuss



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Character Study, Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, Eventual Smut, F/M, Introspection, Nightmares, Slow Burn, and probably not even that smutty, but like... really eventual, more like emotional smut, self indulgent character development written by a hopeless romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:42:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SourPuss/pseuds/SourPuss
Summary: Silence had become a challenge, a question of which she was recklessly determined to find an answer to, it beckoned her to slip her fingers beneath the surface and explore what laid beneath.The threat of imminent death and oblivion isn’t perhaps the most romantic of situations, but Gwenna Tabris was anything if not unconventional.





	Love is Less Kind Than the Grey Twilight

_Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,_  
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;  
Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;  
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. 

They had made slow progress from Lothering; every road they passed had been inundated with refugees walking a hopeless pilgrimage, wishing only that in the next abandoned village they would stumble across an untouched pantry, plentiful enough to feed their family. The column spanned as far as the eye could see, miles and miles of sallow-faced spectres, they marched north as the Blight ravaged their homes and their sons and fathers lay rotting at Ostagar. Occasionally the path swelled at the promptly erected toll points, tokens, livestock, and daughters were all traded for a safe passage. The wails of those unable to fulfil such a bargain rang in the ears of those miles behind, but their abrupt silencing cut far deeper. Gwenna yearned to put an end to it, every muscle in her ached for her to run her dagger through the lot of them and leave them for the darkspawn to maul. She hated how they made her feel, small and helpless and like she had never left the Alienage, she saw the way they jeered at the women, the way they smirked like foxes sneaking into the chicken coop, she dug her nails into her palm and envisioned herself tearing them into ribbons. Despite their cruelty, she could not intervene, the girl from Lothering had warned her and Alistair that Loghain had sent word to all towns of any significance that there was a handsome bounty on the two murderous Grey Wardens fleeing Ostagar. Alistair had reacted in equal parts outrage and incredulity, seemingly unable to see beyond the insult of Loghain’s claim to notice its convenience- she admired that about him, despite herself, how sincerely he felt, a reaction most mistook for simpleness.

No matter how they felt, it meant they were to keep a low profile as they passed through territories under Loghain’s influence, especially so when the roaring stomachs of those around them had long since dissolved any loyalties they could have possibly held to the heroes of old. Naturally, this left Bodahn with the unenviable task of winding the cart through the treacherous wooded paths, the wheels of his cart gliding along the grooves left by generations of those who desired secrecy. His passengers hung their heads low as they lurched along the uneven path, holding their breath as any passing wagon squeezed by, hoping no passer-by cared enough to truly register them. _I could not blame them_ , Gwenna thought to herself as the cart shuddered along the desolate path, _they have no reason to love us and every reason to betray us_. Sometimes, it felt as though the woods whispered to them, to each in a different tongue. The main road was too far away to properly make out any conversation, but through the thicket it felt as though certain words cut through, sharp as a dagger- _warden, hungry, mother, alone_. The words hung about her like a hound’s breath, hot and putrid. 

Eventually, the wagon rolled into a clearing, it was littered with the charred firewood of the countless travellers who had drifted through the Ferelden countryside, but the ground was soft and even and the soft trickle of water through the stream made Gwenna feel oddly nostalgic towards a life she had not lived. Although there were a few hours of reluctant daylight left, Bodahn assured them all that they were finally on the path to Redcliffe, and as most travellers would continue north to Denerim, it was safe to rejoin the main road. They would make camp early, and leave at the crack of dawn, and Gwenna knew she would not miss that cruel and lonely path one bit.

The evening air had a delicate stillness to it, rippling gently as though it were a length of silk draped across the sky, but it hung over the camp with the resignation of a day brought to its end. Gwenna patted down her bedroll one last time for good measure- a domestic sensibility she had not yet the heart to give up- before wandering to the creek to get the most of the cool water and soft, grassy bank. In yet another act of Hestian quaintness, she had indulged in some soaps and teas used for bathing as they passed through Lothering. When she allowed herself a moment to close her eyes and run her fingers through her scalp she remembered her mother’s touch, the way she would wash and braid her hair as though she were spinning golden thread. The irony of her appearance was not missed on her; to sit by the bubbling stream as though she was a delicate maiden, who had in a terrible stumbled from her idyllic ballad and landed face-first in the Blight, but with such delicacy came a pride, it was something that she had protected, nurtured, and fought hard for. She would, if only for a moment, allow herself to slip into the quietness, let the water wrap around her as though she had returned to her mother’s womb, listening for the beat of a heart that grown still when she was but a child.

Her usual bathing companion, Morrigan, had appeared to trade making japes surrounding the general incompetence of men and disclosing tales of her youth in the Wilds with hassling Sten, the tight-lipped Qunari they had enlisted. In her usual fashion, Morrigan seemed to be testing just how deeply she could position herself under his skin. Unfortunately for his would-be tormentor, it appeared the Qunari were made of sterner stuff than her usual target, Alistair, who seemed to possess the natural ability to charm women the same way a snake possessed the natural ability to tapdance. 

Her thoughts drifted to Alistair as she snuck into camp, her wet hair clinging to her back. She had not seen her fellow Grey Warden since they had set up camp, although she was certain he had gone with Dog into the surrounding woods to look for any fresh game. Or more accurately, Dog would tear across the foliage in the search of a hunt whilst Alistair followed, occupied in his thoughts. She did not think it would be fair to call him despondent, although she wondered had she been yet another fatality of Ostagar if Alistair would have continued at all; she felt as though her inexperience comforted him in a way, perhaps it made him feel slightly less powerless, knowing that there was someone who was even more clueless than him. Either way, the junior warden seemed to keep his distance, Gwenna could sense there was still much about him she did not know, but her attempts counter this had been met mostly with deflecting humour or dead-end conversations. Sometimes, she would think bitterly to herself, _what could he have possibly endured, which I hadn’t already suffered tenfold?_ The Alienage had left her calloused, like a rope coiled around her neck, threatening to reach its tether. On the bad days, when it was wound so tightly she could barely breathe, she wanted to scream at him, of all he did not know and could never understand, of what good honourable men did to elven women behind closed doors. She loathed him because she desperately wished to understand him, to know that she was worthy of the camaraderie of shared pain.

In the meantime, she kept her distance and wondered if by their twentieth near-death experience he would feel ready to trust her.

As she slipped into her cotton nightshirt- bought second-hand according to the vendor, fourteenth-or-so-hand most likely, from a refugee caravan just outside of Lothering, she had pressed an extra twenty silvers into his hand and advised him to keep travelling north to Denerim- she noticed that Alistair was still absent from camp. The sky was a deep red now, and even the infrequent shudder of a passing wagon had long since come to a halt. Gwenna was not worried for him, she was certainly confused as to why he would stay in the woods after it had long since turned dark, but she did not fear that he had come to harm. As the days following the Joining passed, she had noticed a particular kind of _awareness_ she felt around Alistair- as though she could still sense an amputated limb, she had developed some kind of consciousness to where he was, separate to her other senses. At first, it had been a rush of blood to the head whenever he was near, she had chided herself for acting like a blushing maid, unable to compose herself at the mere presence of a man in armour. Now, from thirty paces -the other side of camp, and then some- she could place him, like the faint tug of a string connecting the two, he could not hope to evade her quite so easily. She crawled into her bedroll, content that if she could pluck that tiny string, he would pull back, and allowed herself to give way to the lull of sleep.

_A terrible scream tore through the blanket of darkness that had so far cloaked Gwenna’s sleep. Is this an attack? She tore herself from her paralytic state with a violent jerk of her right elbow, only to find herself teetering on a dark red precipice. Crimson rock engulfed her, and her hands grew clammy from grabbing at the seeping walls. She could not tell if the redness was a trick of the light of if blood for truly oozing from the jagged rock. Below her marched the army of the dead. No, they were not dead, as the furious pace of their march illustrated. They were hideous and strong and so horribly alive that bile stung in her throat and twisted her stomach. They marched, legion by legion, with legs that would not tire and an insatiable hunger. They marched, in their mindless brigades, to the surface. To home. To everyone and everything she had ever known. Is this hell? She asked herself, had she been condemned to watch the triumphant procession before they razed civilisation itself. She wanted to cry, to scream, to howl and weep at the futility of it all when the same blood-curdling screech tore through her despair. And with the screech, came a beast for which the entire Blight paled to. Its skin was black and red, like a charred corpse, its body splintered and wrapped in spines thicker than an oak tree, its teeth large and sharp enough to skewer a man in a single bite. But worst still was its fire. It spewed out of its mouth in hateful plumes, suffocating her in an explosion of heat and sulfur. She choked and screamed and suddenly she felt as though she was nothing._

She woke up violently, her chest heaving and her heart pounding like a rabbit speeding away from a hound. Her eyes darted around her frantically, desperately trying to dispel any remaining memories of that wicked place, her ears rang and she bit into the flesh on her tucked up knee because she had no other way of making the world quiet. Seconds, minutes, perhaps even hours passed but eventually her breathing slowed, she clenched and unclenched her fists and in doing so became aware of a familiar presence across from her. 

“Duncan never had a chance to warn you about the nightmares, I take it.” The complete stillness of their surroundings, not even a breeze whistling through the surrounding woods, gave his voice an unusual silvery quality. There was something painfully artificial to his manner, from his pose to his measuredly inoffensive yet not-quite-patronising comment, and for a moment she considered simply curling up and feigning sleep. But there was something about his gentleness that led her to feel that it was for her sake, that he was anxious to make sure she was okay. It was undeniably touching, even if she did not wish for him to look after her.  


“No, though I doubt any warning could have prepared me for that,” she smiled weakly, in the soft morning haze her dream felt far away, and she promised herself she would not be scared. It was the same promise she had made to her mother as a girl, she could crawl into her bed and nestle in Adaia’s arms, but she would not cry. “I take it you’re no stranger to them? Or was my darkspawn particularly troublesome?”  


Alistair let out a nervous bark of laughter, shifting awkwardly under the scrutiny. “You handled your first far better than I did. I ran into Duncan’s room- very nearly taking the door off its hinge- and I told him the Blight was coming, that I had foreseen the end of civilisation itself,” despite the macabre topic, his expression held a wistfulness of a fond childhood memory, a moment of irretrievable innocence. “Well, once he could quite contain his amusement he explained to me that all Grey Wardens experience them, another fantastic side-effect of being able to sense the darkspawn is that sometimes you _hear_ the Archdemon. Apparently, it’s even worse for any who join during a Blight, all the corruption they bring to the surface makes you even more sensitive. So, between slowly succumbing to the taint- if you even survive the Joining- to having your nights narrated by the bellowings of a corrupted god, who wouldn’t want to become a Grey Warden?”  


“To us, the unluckiest pair in all of Ferelden!” Gwenna tipped her waterskin towards him in a mock cheer, thinking that she was in dire need of a drink. _Thirty years to live if I’m lucky, but at least it shall be by my own hand_. She wondered if Alistair knew of the circumstances that had led to her conscription if he did he was certainly smart enough not to show it. She hoped Duncan had decided it to be inconsequential, although it would have certainly deterred any of her fellow recruit’s assumptions that she did not know how to look after herself. A small, unsuspecting thing such as herself, slicing the jugular of the Arl of Denerim’s son- Loghain’s accusation of treason seemed only natural in the progression of her dealings with the human elite. “Let our years be long, and our dreams be short.”  


“Cheers! You know, even after Duncan explained the dreams to me, part of me still wanted to ask him if I could sleep in his bed for the night, like a frightened little boy.” _Adaia_ , she felt her mother’s fingertips running through her hair, smoothing her back, and lacing into her own shaking hands. Even now, when she was all but a memory, the spectre of her touch washed away her fear, it seeped back into the earth, trickling away to that hellish cave. “Much to my dismay, he told me that as I was up, I could begin attending to my errands. He knew what he was doing, by the time sunlight had broke I could scarcely remember what I had been so upset about. He made it feel less real.”  


_You can come to me, my love, but you cannot cry_ , Adaia’s voice cooed to her. “I understand,” nestling her cheek against her knees, she looked up to him from across the campfire. 

Perhaps it was her memories of her mother, or the elated feeling that comes with waking in the early hours of the morning, when the world feels so ripe and so full of opportunity, but she longed to be in the Alienage. She missed running through the streets like a half-wild alleycat, being crass and mischievous and ecstatically free. She wanted to be reckless and take boys by the hand to the _vhenedal_ , lean in close till they could feel her breath against her lips, then shoot off running to see if they would follow her. She wondered if she would ever feel that way again, if one day the world would stop feeling so heavy and she could go back to Shianni and they would laugh until their stomachs hurt. Or perhaps her cousin would resent her, that she escaped both the Alienage and the hands of those men that day; it had scarred Gwenna too, but she had not the bruises to prove it. Her gaze returned to her companion, comrade, _friend_ , the last stuck to her like a lump in her throat- given all they had gone through the word somehow felt obscene. Alistair too was far off in thought, and oblivious to the fact that he was under scrutiny, far too occupied reminiscing to notice her. The campfire cast shadows that flickered and danced across his face, illuminating the heaviness of his under eyes, the weary pallor of his face looking stark against the warm glow. _He must not have slept when he returned from the woods_. She could not recall the last time she had woke to find him resting, he was always up and eager to start travelling. 

_Tonight was the same, he was waiting for me_. She wondered what dreams waited for him, slipping into the fringes of his consciousness, beckoning him to shut his eyes and give up control. Would he be haunted by visions of the Blight, horrific, but impersonal enough that they faded away with the sunrise, or if he would be taken back to Ostagar, to watch all he loved, the family he had always wished for, turn to blood and ashes? She looked to him, and saw a man desperate for comfort but hopelessly unable to ask for it; unfortunately for him, she had never quite learned how to give it. 

“You should get some sleep.” She did not look for his response, as she began to pack away her bedroll.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to anyone who read through this (yes, that means you)!  
> I really intended this to just be a short, straight-forward piece, but unfortunately, I've never done anything concisely. What really drove me to write this was the intimacy of being Grey Wardens, the ways in which Alistair and the Warden find themselves bound to one another very quickly, and without any true understanding of one another. That's how I would summarise this chapter I suppose, about intimacy and the small comforts we hold when everything else has gone to madness, and the awkwardness of simultaneously knowing an awful lot about someone and very little at all.  
> All comments are very welcome!


End file.
